


pièce de résistance

by waspfactor



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Asano Gakuhou's Bad Parenting, Blood and Injury, Bugs & Insects, Cannibalism, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Death, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinda, M/M, Medical Trauma, Psychological Trauma, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Violence, a cannibal au is something that can be so personal, add cannibal fic to my sins i guess, not really - Freeform, sometimes, this... is a hannibal au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27644654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waspfactor/pseuds/waspfactor
Summary: noun- (especially with reference to creative work) the most important or remarkable feature.karma akabane meets his match in the form of a serial killer profiler, gakushuu asano(or... a hannibal au)
Relationships: Akabane Karma/Asano Gakushuu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	pièce de résistance

**Author's Note:**

> watching hannibal again n.... i was hit by a lot of feels, so this was born. pls dont cancel me for writing cannibal fic PLSSSSS i am so ashamed to have wrote this but it was rotting my brain and also rotting my computer so you guys can have it now 
> 
> (waspfactor: sorry for writing ass class cannibal fic, yous: some crimes can never be forgiven)
> 
> i gave gakushuu the 'aura' (like nagisa's snake and gakuhou's centipede) of a scorpion! always waiting, always deadly but not always striking. 
> 
> um. this is like. dark. karma is Not Good Person in this. heed the tags n stay safe!!

When Karma Akabane meets Gakushuu Asano, the off the books and off the records serial profiler, he notices something immediately.

“You don’t like making eye contact, do you?”

The other blinks, turns his head away while the director laughs heartily. It’s not nervousness, Karma deduces. Just can’t look into one’s eyes. He wonders if he even looks at his own reflection, stare into the pools of amethyst that lay way to the soul.

Karma grins inwardly. This is interesting.

He’s not _officially_ his psychiatrist but the line is blurry. In their first meeting, Gakushuu Asano speaks about himself like it’s from a script, like he’s just some character. Karma hands him a sheet of pen and paper, tells him to draw a clockface showing the time.

While the other draws, he’s enamoured by the way he uses a pen. “You’re naturally right-handed. And yet, you use your left hand.”

Gakushuu doesn’t look up from the paper but his hand pressure increases, almost tearing through the sheet. “How do you know that? I could just be ambidextrous.”

“You hold a pen in your hand like you would a knife. Not even left-handed assassins would wield a pen like that. It’s a conscious thing.”

A smile curls up on Gakushuu’s face; he’s been figured out. “I do it to remind myself I’m still in control,” He hands back the paper. “It’s 12:23 and my name is Gakushuu Asano. I write with my left hand. I’m in control.”

Karma so desperately wants to see him out of control; wants to see the right-handed Gakushuu Asano. He makes a beautiful mental note and keeps a tab on it.

( _The clock face is disjointed, an incomplete circle. Numbers are missing and there’s 4 clock hands showing. Karma has a feeling Gakushuu Asano will lose control very soon. He cannot wait._ )

He’s not surprised to have Gakushuu wind up on his door at 5am. He’s soaked to the bone, vacant look in his eyes. “I don’t know where else I could go.”

Karma makes him breakfast, ahi tuna tartare with a balsamic reduction. Gakushuu’s keeps his eye on the plates in front of him. If one were less observant, you’d suspect he was entranced by it all. But Karma knows Gakushuu better than Gakushuu thinks he does; he’s _thinking._ “You were a surgeon before.”

The director must’ve let that cat out of the bag. “Yes. Cardiovascular.”

“Why did you quit.”

“I failed to save someone,” He begins to neatly dice avocadoes. “The light leaving someone’s eyes is such an eldritch horror. I don’t have to worry about that in this line of work.”

Gakushuu’s phone rings; a quiet conversation and then, a sigh. “I need to go to work. There’s been a murder.”

So much for the food. No matter. It’ll make a fine lunch anyway. “Mind if I accompany you?”

Crack. A piece shatters, the scorpion slumbers. “It’s… not going to be a pretty sight.”

“If I am going to offer my services to you, I must see your brilliant mind in action, no?”

Gakushuu Asano deconstructs and reconstructs crime scenes as he’s conducting an orchestra while doing the waltz. Karma watches him, a cacophony of thoughts and trombones. He’s… fuck. There’s no other word for it.

He’s memorising.

He begins to walk over to the gruel display of death; a man crucified, hands posed awkwardly, his chest cavern caved out, replaced with flowers and snakes and octopi. He dissects the work that Karma went through the trouble of constructing for him. Like he expected, Gakushuu hits the nail on the head at almost every turn.

Almost.

“I crucify him. It’s a last-minute decision. Pining his body to the wood is harder than I thought. Before rigor mortis kicks in, I crush his hands and rearrange them, like a prophet. This is my Sistine Chapel, I am Michelangelo. This is my message. This is my design.”

(Karma wants so very much to clarify that this is not his best work nor was it any sort of message. But that ruins the game, so he keeps his mouth shut)

The director looks pleased at this conclusion, his prized possession once again proving it’s worth. Gakushuu Asano keeps a neutral face, lets the cold morning face redden his face.

That next therapy session, Gakushuu only has one induced seizure, body convulsions in his seat as Karma continues to blow into a dog whistle. When he comes back to, Karma wipes away the tears from his eyes. There are claw marks left in the leather.

Another thing about Gakushuu Asano that fascinates him- when he brings his pet stick insects into his office, Gakushuu inhales sharply. This is strange for a number of reasons, the biggest one being -Gakushuu Asano is not one to irrationally fear. Karma brings the tank closer to where Gakushuu’s sitting. “What caused this aversion to insects?”

“My father tried to breed centipedes in my ear canal,” Gakushuu Asano leans back, away from the tank. “I can still feel them crawling still.”

Karma hums, sets up two metronomes at different beats, on either side of Gakushuu. He snaps his fingers and Gakushuu’s head falls forward. “Tell me more about your father.”

Gakushuu has two episodes that session, an impressive improvement from last time. The medication is working; his blood as thinned if the heavy nosebleed is anything to go by. He picks up one of the insects (Jebediah) and guides it to Gakushuu’s ear. He doesn’t scream- good boy.

The metronomes continue their endless taunt as Karma leaves him overnight like that, strapped to the chair in the dark, covered with stick insects.

He, of course, takes it like a champ.

No matter how much Karma tests him, pushes him to crack, right handed, Gakushuu’s mind is still sharp enough for work, still waltzing mentally in his mind palace as he correctly identifies a sign of a struggle.

He’s amazing.

The day he realises that Gakushuu’s more aware of the game he’s been constructing is one of the days he invites him over for dinner. Gakushuu insists on bringing over the protein for Karma to cook, and the latter indulges it. The ‘protein’ is quite clearly a cut of loin but unusual is the butchering of it. It’s hasty, spur of a moment, choppy. Not bad for a first attempt.

“What a fine bit of meat,” He holds it up in front of him. “Interesting butchering as well.”

Gakushuu nods, the praise going right to his eyes. “Thank you.” It’s barely a whisper.

Karma smiles and whistles a tune. This is the happiest he’s been in years. Gakushuu is the perfect being, his mind so sharp and precise and yet so malleable. It’s time consuming but Karma will make a protegee out of him yet.

It becomes a silly little game of cat and mouse, it’s almost comical. By day, they attempt to solve gruesome murders and by night, they commit those same murders. Karma thinks they’re just playing this for the self-satisfaction, for the look on the director’s face every time Gakushuu correctly reconstructs a crime scene.

The director, like a house of poorly stacked playing cards, is also his own undoing. Too caught up in showing off his nicest china set, he forgot about his own cracks. He played the game, _tried_ to. But he is no Gakushuu Asano and the realisation of what stage he’s been performing on, who’s strings he’s attached to is all too late.

Maybe serving him the tongue of one of his recently deceased (read: murdered) colleagues was too on the nose.

The director’s eyes widen; _fear._ He looks down at his plate and then at Karma and then at his plate and then stands up, legs gelatine. “Gakushuu-“ He starts to call but the voice dies in his throat. A tracheometry via scalpel is fun for neither party. Very messy and very sore. He splutters, blood pools at his mouth n falls into his own meal.

Oh well. For Gakushuu’s first proper butchering, they might as well make it messy.

Gakushuu Asano enters the room, drops the wine he was carrying. His eyes widen, very much in a similar way as the director did and- _oh._ He drops to his knees, cradles the director’s body. “ _Father.”_ He weeps and weeps, tears. “ _Father._ ” He chants it as if that’ll bring him back to life.

The mask is broken but not in the way Karma wanted it to. Crack. His ear is itching, all of a sudden.

Gakushuu pulls out the scalpel and, like a scorpion who chose his moment, lunges at Karma. There’s a struggle and by struggle, the table is destroyed in two, a sea of china, glass and silverware lapping at their feet. They’re of equal builds, similar combat experience too. Gakushuu’s got adrenaline pumping through his veins, the once stoic purple eyes are infernos of emotions but Karma’s got the element of surprise.

Or so he thought until Gakushuu finds the steak knife, kept hidden in a chest of drawers and plunges it into his shoulder. It’s not the first time but it _has_ been a while. He hears a slow clicking noise, _hooves_ and then the clatter of wooden windchimes. The disorientation gives Gakushuu a few seconds, he _runs._

Enough games. He won’t let Gakushuu leave, not like that anyway. He pulls out the knife (ow) and aims for the other’s leg. Like picking off a wound stag, he falls, blood gushing out of his leg.

When he picks up Gakushuu, there’s fear in his eyes. “P-Please don’t eat me…” He pleads. His clothes, a rather dashing matching suit, are torn and stained. He’s missing a tooth, face gleamed over with residual tears.

Karma strokes his face, wants to let him know it’s going to be alright. Can’t waste such a prime cut of meat like this, wouldn’t eat him in a million years. Gakushuu is a prised specimen, a most fascinating little scorpion. He is not one to be eaten but to be consumed, relished, _savoured._ Karam wants to hang him on his wall so he never forgets Gakushuu Asano.

He shh’s Gakushuu as he runs his hand through the strawberry blond locks.

“Another time, my dear,” He plants a small kiss on Gakushuu’s forward and then slices him open, the trailing point knife catching on sinew.

It’s not quite the dance that Karma was expecting but he takes it, _The Blue Danube_ echoing throughout the destroyed dining room. He hums the tune as Gakushuu’s eyes falter, losing the eye contact he had worked _so hard_ to keep.

Karma lays him down gently, still humming. Gakushuu’s hand falters, reaches out to grasp his own. There’s no force in it, no grip and Karma feels as Gakushuu goes under.

He locks the front door and gets to his car. He takes the next flight back home, under a new name, new passport, new identity. Takes his middle name, scratches out Akabane and assumes his mother’s old maiden name, practices his Russian in the airport bathroom and he dyes his hair black.

He settles down in one of the more popular cities in Russia. It’s big enough for him to blend him but small enough that it’s not anyone’s first spot to look for him.

Then, again, Gakushuu Asano is not just ‘anyone’.

When Karma (or rather, Daniil now) visits the local ammunition museum in town, there’s a familiar face waiting for him by the entrance.

Thin, ginger hair and scorpion purple eyes. Right-handed.

Karma smiles for real. He’s home.

**Author's Note:**

> im wasp-factor on tumblr if u wanna cancel me, scream at me there (i have other things planned this is not my karma akabane magnum opus)
> 
> i am embarrassed putting my name under this but. we move!!


End file.
